Ghostlight
by The Bound Fenrir
Summary: Sarah 'Flamefist' is a beginning runner who is about to recieve a life-changing mission... Closed due to insufficient knowledge of the Shadowrun universe. May reopen, but don't count on it.
1. Prologue: Coffee and Money

**So, I've been reading a lot of shadowrun forums for the last couple months, and I thought I'd try my hand at a 'runner fanfic. For all the chummers out there, I do NOT possess the books, and as a result cannot possibly know the stats of any of the equipment/races/skills. If something seems unrealistic, it's not me being overlord and god of all I type (even though I am). It's me being unaware that that gun/skill/'ware/ect. doesn't work that way.**

"So let me get this straight. You want me to find this rogue runner Ghostlight, give him a good beat down, and then bring him to a location I will not be told until I have said runner in custody. And somebody is paying me 25k nuyen for it?" Sarah 'Flamefist' Tenchiigami looked at the Johnson over her cup of extra hot synth-coffee. The Johnson just smiled at her, as he had been the throughout the introduction, and took a drink of his own, not so hot, synth-coffee. He somehow managed to smile around the cup without spilling. "What's the catch?" As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true…

"You'll find Ghostlight is a lot harder to find than most. He has a habit of disappearing. Unfortunately for him, he chose to do some things while he disappeared that weren't good for his continued health. My client wishes him to understand that." The Johnson just kept on smiling. Sarah put the empty cup down and stared at it disappointedly. It sounded like a setup, but money was tight right now. Sarah laughed to herself at that. Money was always tight. Being a runner paid the bills, but that was about it. Most of your money went right back towards more ammunition or medical bills, neither of which were cheap when your guns weren't entirely legal and the bio- and cyberware in your system were equally so.

"What's so special about this guy? One of the tricks of the trade is to disappear, so what is it that makes this Ghostlight tougher to track down than the rest?" The Johnson's smile faltered a bit at this, and that was the first time it had since Sarah had walked into her favorite coffee joint in all of Seattle to find a this guy had been waiting for her so he could offer her this job. And that was the thing that made the least sense of it all. Johnsons don't wait for you at some random spot. They call you and say be in such-a-such place at such-a-such time, then wait for you there with a couple buddies hiding in the shadows carrying various guns.

"He's called Ghostlight for a reason. He's a hacker of incredible skill. I've seen him at work before, and there are few better. Some call him a sevant, but I won't believe that until I see some kind of miracle. I'm not holding my breath." The Johnson's smile was back to its unnatural cheeriness again. "He specializes in information collection, and he's known to frequent the Underground Markets. His skill in erasing his data trail is too good, though. We can't find any video of him."

"…And that's why you've come to me." It was not a question. Sarah was relatively fresh to the shadows, but she had already began developing a reputation as an astral investigator, her handle 'flamefist' more a reference to her appearance than to any real combat ability. With her neon red hair at shoulder length and her elven skin more golden tan than would be expected of a resident of the city of eternal rain, she looked like some kind of fire spirit. That's what some said, anyway. Sarah knew a couple fire spirits, and if she very much doubted she looked like that. "Because I don't need to follow his data trail." The barista brought over another cup of extra hot coffee, and winked at Sarah. He must have been new here, because any of the older employees knew that she wasn't interested in a relationship or in a one night stand.

"Exactly. You would be paid one third upfront, one third upon his capture (please note I said capture. the client wants him alive), and one third upon handing him over. You will, of course, have to prove that you have him in custody before the second third is transferred." The Johnson, Sarah was getting tired of thinking of him like that and tried to remember if she recognized this particular one, adjusted his mirrored shades as he finished the explanation. Money. That was his handle, Money. He had given her a few of her first jobs. He wasn't pleasant to be around, but he hadn't stabbed her in the back yet, so he was pretty cool.

"All right. I'll do it." Money's smile got even bigger, if that was even possible. Sarah's commlink gave her a heads up that a deposit had been made in her account. The first third of the nuyen.

"Good. I'm sending you a file that has all the information on him that hasn't disappeared with him." Before Money had finished talking the file had arrived, and Sarah mentally opened it began reading. Apparently this Ghostlight had appeared in the shadows the same week she had gotten her first job. _A new one like me. _Sarah finished her second cup, this one practically still boiling.

"And how should I contact you when I have Ghostlight in custody?" Sarah sent an ARO to the barista for no more coffee, even though if she was honest she would have ordered three more venti cups of the delicious brown liquid. The barista caught the Altered Reality Object and sent her an ARO with the tab, how much she'd given him upfront and how much was still left after the 12 cups she drank while discussing her impending work with Money. She picked up the change and left a tip in the ARO and sent it back. Meanwhile Money was doing something similar for the one cup of synth-coffee he had nursed throughout the conversation.

"Send a PM to the account I'm sending you now. You'll be given the location of the person who will verify that it's the actual Ghostlight, and then he will tell you where to drop him off." Money just smiled as Sarah stood up and prepared to leave. "And don't forget; Ghostlight may be a hacker, but that doesn't mean he's defenseless. You're not the first runner to be hired to track him down." Money got up and turned around to leave, and smiled back at her. "But I've got a feeling you'll do just fine." He turned and walked out the door, and stepped up to a blue Mitsubishi with a bored looking elf in the driver's seat. "Step on it, Nas. I know I said we could be late, but I didn't think it would take that long." The elf grinned out the window as he pulled out of the parking lot and accelerated too fast, leaving slight skid marks on the edge of the asphalt.

"Well, guess I'd better get started." Sarah mused to herself and got into her own Nisan Cirrus. Sarah set the autopilot for the entrance to the Underground Market and then leaned back and made a call for one of her hacker chummers…

**Disclamer: I do NOT own shadowrun and do not pretend to. It is a paper and pencil RPG almost as old as DND. The Johnson Money and his driver Nas are not my creations. They belong to CanRay of deviant art and ar used without permission. CanRay, please do not sue me, and if ur reading this, finish 'A Debt of Non-Blood' and 'A Simple Run'! If I'm not playing Money right, PM me and I'll fix it to the best of my abilities. I don't plan on having him in future chapters, I just thought he made the perfect intro to a shadowrun fanfic.**


	2. Chapter 1: A Business Exchange

"heyFlamefistit'sgoodtoseeyouihopeyoudon''llgettohangoutsometime?ibetthat'swhyyou'recallingyouwannahangout,don'tyouibetyoudoit'llbesomuchfunandhey,:PIXIESTIX!" Sarah sat through the blur of syllables that was Speeder talking. The little girl was the fastest speaker in the world, and was an even faster hacker.

"Yeah, it's good to see you too, Speeder." Sarah cut in on the hyper child, "I actually need some searching done for a specific person-"

"-andi'mtheperfectoneforthejob,right?" Speeder cut in.

"Yeah, you are. I need you to get me everything you can find on a 'runner by the handle of Ghostlight. I've been told that there isn't anything left since his recent trek into hiding, but they aren't you, so I wanted to double check it. Also, search for other runners who asked about Ghostlight and then disappeared." Sarah watched Speeder on the video overlaid on her vision by the Altered Reality on her commlink, as the little girl's eyes dimmed and then a second later lit back up again as Speeder logged onto the matrix, hacked/searched it for info, then downloaded it all onto her brain.

"wowthisguyisgoodialmostdidn'tfindanythingit'slikehedoesn'texhistbuthistrickdoesn'texhistbuthistrickdoesn''''sterritoryandhaven'." Speeder talked so fast it was almost impossible to figure out what she was saying. Sarah sighed, and gave Speeder that look which said 'you did it again' and Speeder pouted a little. "''." Speeder was obviously trying to slow down, and it was just enough for Sarah to understand.

"Thanks." Sarah sent Speeder a payment through one of her non-existent accounts. "Here, get yourself some more of those pixiestix. Don't tell Sensei where you got the money from, ok?" Sensei was an over the hill hacker who took care of Speeder. If he found out that Sarah had told Speeder that, she was as good as dead.

"YAYPIXIESTIX!…"Sarah cut off the call and checked where she was. The car was just pulling into the empty spot where Sarah used to inter the Underground Market.

"Good timing…" Sarah murmured, and felt for the power within her. As usual, it responded sullenly; it didn't like how she'd replaced her original eyes with cyber ones and the bio-thingy she had that made her stronger, faster, and smarter. She had traded part of her soul for an upgraded body, and her Essence had been hurt by it. Sarah apologized to the awakened power again and explained that those upgrades had saved her life on many an occasion. It felt a bit better at that, and when Sarah asked it to manifest, it came.

Sarah's vision altered as she switched to astral vision, and checked out the area from inside her car. There wasn't anything beyond the normal trails left when large numbers of people travel through an area on a regular basis. Leaving her vision in astral, Sarah noticed yet again how much like AR astral vision was. She was aware of everything she would have seen normally, but she could also see things that were beyond the normal senses overlaid on her perceptions.

Sarah stepped into the Underground Market and lost herself in the crowd. With her astral vision she could actually see the movements of the crowd as a kind of aural wave, and Sarah felt like she was surfing on the tides of the crowd. Crowd surfing had always been a favorite pastime of hers, even before she had Awakened. After crowd surfing for a few minutes, Sarah decided to check on the closest of the shops Ghostlight had frequented before his disappearance. She stepped up to a second hand chip shop.

"Hello, Madam. My name is BLT and I've got the chip for you!" a sleazy looking Orc stepped up to Sarah as she came in. Her astral sight showed the holes in his aura where he had a data jack and, by the look of it, a bio-node implanted in the base of his skull. In fact, his whole body appeared to be rent with holes from various cyber ware for hackers. Sarah arched an eyebrow.

"And how would you know what the chip for me is?" Sarah let the calm disbelief coat her words and waited for an answer. The Orc's eyes glittered at that, and Sarah figured he'd been asked that question more times than not by his customers.

"I am a business man; it's my job to know what the customer wants, needs, or both. Besides, I have just about every kind of chip there is, and my prices are as cheap as they get without breaking my wallet." Sarah looked at the Orc's high-nuyen business suit pointedly. "-ehem. Yes. Anyway, If I don't have what you want, you're looking for something very specific and probably more unhealthy than not. What can I do you for?" the Orc asked as he slipped behind the counter, several chips sitting in display cases with their names next to them.

"I'm not actually here for a chip. I'm here for information, and before you reach for the Ares Predator II beneath the cabinet, here me out; I'm not here for you or your business." The Orc obviously looked like he wanted to grab the reliable pistol anyway, but Sarah had laid her hand on her own Super Ruger Warhawk as she said this, and the way she held the custom grip made it clear that the techy wouldn't even get his finger on the trigger before there was a bullet between his electronic eyes. In fact, it would be two bullets, because the Warhawk was modified with the custom grip, melee hardening so she could crack skulls without wasting ammo, and, more importantly, an under barrel weapon mod: Ruger Super Warhawk. Sarah was saving up for smartlink so she would be able to let the gun worry about not shooting allies. "I'm here asking about a guy who used to visit here often, went by the handle Ghostlight. What can you tell me about him?"

"Ghostlight? Who's this Ghostlight character, and why do you think I-"The orc stopped mid sentence as he got to see the inside of the pistol's barrels. "Oh, you mean THAT Ghostlight. I remember him. Why didn't you say so? I thought you meant some other guy. Ok, you can lower that thing. I may be a little less than Einstein, but I'm not stupid."Sarah held the pistol where it was. The orc's eyes looked out the still open door towards the crowd flowing past like a river, obviously hoping one of them would be one of his customers and come to his rescue. But this was the Underground Market, and as long as it was just between the customer and the shopkeeper, nobody wanted to get involved. Besides, there were plenty of other second hand chip shops that DIDN'T currently have a hot Elvin chick with a big pistol aimed at the owners head in them.

"Listen. I don't want to waste ammo on some chip-addled storekeeper who's been trying a few too many of his own merchandise, but right now I need to know everything you can remember about Ghostlight. Especially appearance. And I'm not waiting on an orc with a slow memory. There are five other shops on my list, and if you don't know, I'm sure the others will." In fact there were only two other shops, but stretching the truth tended to get better results from people like this guy who didn't see much combat outside of the trids.

"What Ghostlight looks like?" the orc actually laughed. "Your guess is as good as mine." Sarah narrowed her eyes and pulled back the hammer on her revolver. "EASY! I'm telling you what I know! Yes, the guy was a regular here. Always bought the same kinda chips. Would have thought him an addict if he hadn't always been so calm. But he wore a hood far enough foreword that his face was always hidden. One time I angled a light so it would head inside the hood so I could see his face, but there was a black cloth on the inside of the hood. Some kinda mask. The only part of the guy I ever saw that wasn't covered in cloth was part of his wrist once when his glove caught on the edge of a display. All I can tell ya is the guy was either Caucasian, or Elvin." The smooth businessman accent was falling away as the orc talked, and his more gang-ish accent stirred a memory in Sarah. She couldn't label it yet, but luckily the guy took his time talking.

"Ok. I may be crazy, but I believe you. Now about the chips he bought?" Sarah let the hammer come back down when the orc looked back towards the crowd one time, and he apparently didn't noticed.

"The chips? Right, right the chips. Like I says, he always buys the same chips. Woulda thought 'im a addict, but 'ee was always so calm. So deadly calm. Like 'eed as soon shoot ya as ask fer yer name. But every time he asks fer them TC's. Never seen a guy addicted to them, either. They aint the more mindbendin' stuff." Sarah frowned. _TCs? What is a TC chip? _

"What's a TC chip?" Sarah hadn't moved since drawing the gun accept to pull back the hammer, and later to covertly slip it back down, and now she was beginning to get stiff. But if she moved, it would lessen the fear factor of the gun in the ganger-turned-businessman's face.

"A TC chip? Heck, you're looking for the guy and you don't even know his favorite rides?" the hammer slid back again, this time all the way so it click and held when she let go of it. "EASY, EASY! Didn' mean nothin' by it, no-sir-ee I's just openin' mah big mouth. A TC is a Trid Chip. They make ya feel like yer in a trid, mostly with background music and a fake HUD that shows 'health' and 'armor'. Most of 'em come with ARO's that look like old trid baddies, and whenever you hit em they blow up an' yer score rises." Sarah looked at the orc like he was speaking marsian.

"Are you telling me this guy would come and by AR trids?" Sarah couldn't help but sound indignant. It just sounded too ridiculous that this tough hacker runner that had made five people disappear was addicted to altered reality trids. It was enough that she would've laughed if she hadn't needed to hold the revolver steady. "Are you sure that's the lie you want to try and get by me?"

"I'm tellin' ya da truth!" the scumbag's ganger accent was fully voiced now, and Sarah was on the verge of figuring out why it was attracting her attention. "The sonovaslitch would buy old TCs and then be on 'is way! I ain't stupid; I ain't gonna lie to sumslitch wid a gun in my face!" And there it was. Sarah's eyes narrowed as she figured it out. The gang accents had slight variations that determined which gang you were in. This orc's accent was Reaver.

"Alright. So this guy is addicted to trids. One more thing before I decide if you've been helpful enough to not waste the bullet to your brain: What happened to the others who came asking for him?" Sarah saw the sweet poor down the orc's face as he realized that she knew he was related to that.

"The others? Oh, yeah." The orc's eyes rolled back and to the right. Sarah mentally sighed. When you roll your eyes back and to the left, you're remembering something. When you roll your eyes up and to the right you're trying to imagine something. The bastard was lying. "There was some others that asked after him. Dey was wantin' to know where to find 'im. I told 'em to ask at dis other place I hear he visited. They left an' I haven't seen 'em since."

Sarah called on her awakened power. It was ready, and she focused her energy towards the orc and his aura. The orc fidgeted as if he could feel it, but considering how much of his soul had been traded for cyberware, he was probably just nervous about the gun. With careful focus, she turned the astral energy she was controlling into a pointed dagger, and inserted it into the back of the orc's skull, directly into his datajack. The orc's eyes bulged and began to tear up as his brain registered the energy pressing on his mind.

"AH! Ah, ah, ah! Wha…oh, that hurts. Oh, I think I'm gonna be sick…" the orc did look green in the gills, but Sarah wasn't worried about that; his mental walls hadn't been very strong and she was properly messing with his mind just enough to keep him from being able to think strait. He would tell the truth because he couldn't figure out why not too. There was a name for this power, but Sarah had never bothered to remember it. She had also been told that her perception of what she was doing was radically different from how other awakened perceived the use of this particular skill.

"What happened to the others who asked about Ghostlight?" Sarah asked sweetly, though she kept the gun up. The orc looked at her through his watering eyes and runny nose.

" What? Oh, yeah. The runners looking for the hacker. They was getting too close to the gang's gig over on the edge of Halloween territory, so I gave 'em false info. They headed straight to the trap, and we slit their throats." The orc giggled at that through his headache, and then proceded to be sick on the ground in front of him. "Ah, man. I'm gonna have to get some meds. Mind comin' back later?"

"Ok. I got what I wanted anyway." Sarah lowered the gun and walked out the door of the shop, keeping the revolver in hand until after she had stepped back into the crowd, just to be safe. The orc would start to feel better in a couple minutes, and would probably remember her asking, but the part after she hit him with her mental spike would be fuzzy. He would probably just figure she had left after he told her about the trids. Sarah did let herself laugh this time. Addicted to trids? That was just sad. Sarah still had two other shops to check before she left, and she headed for the closer, soul surfing across the Market.

**Disclaimer: I don't own Speeder. If I can help it, she will be the last character I barrow from anybody for this story. **

**As for the ruger super warhawk with an under barrel super ruger warhawk, it is entirely legal within shadowrun, and just sounds cool ;).**


	3. Chapter 2: Shift Gears and More COFFEE

**It has come to my attention that I failed to explain a piece of shadowrun vocabulary to the readers, so I'd like to rectify that mistake: trid refers to both videogames and tv shows, although with the matrix tv shows are not always on the tv…but the point stands that if someone says 'the trids' they mean the tv shows, probably the news. In the case of the trid chips from this story, it is referring to videogames.**

Sarah sighed as she stepped out of the Underground Market. She hadn't learned anything new from the other shopkeepers, just more about Ghostlight's apparent addicting to trids. All she had to go on was this Reaver gig that the other 'runners had apparently gotten too close to and been killed over. And that was bad because her Reaver contact had recently bit a bullet in a power struggle, and so she had no source of information inside the gang's operation.

Sarah activated her comm. and called in some back-up. Sarah mentally calculated what this back-up was going to cost her as the other side picked up, and sighed again when she came up with the number.

"…hey, babe. Why is a hot chick calling me and waking me up so early in the morning?" The video feed showed an empty living room, or at least a living room that didn't have anyone in it. The room was cluttered with junk. Sarah's eyebrows lowered slightly.

"Gimme a visual, Shift, and I'll tell you. Besides, it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, hardly early in the morning." Sarah listened as someone in the other room picked up what Sarah presumed was an alarm clock.

"So it is, but I usually work nights, so it is early morning for me. Really early morning in fact…hold on I'll be there in a second." Sarah sat in her car impatiently as the sounds of someone preparing for the day, or in this case night, ahead came from off camera. Finally a tall, heavily muscled human in a skintight t-shirt and a pair of saggy pants stepped into the room, his fire red hair standing up in a Mohawk. Shift was a street samurai, or a shadowrunner who focused all his skills on combat. All shadowrunners carry guns, but street samurai also carried blades. Most held themselves to a code of honor, like one of the ancient samurai, but being runners, their code of honor was usually much more lax than their ancient counterparts. Shift's bulkiness was not that he was muscle-bound, but that he had grafted muscles that made him stronger than a normal human and a lean, mean machine made all the more powerful by the fact that his skeleton was laced with carbon. Shift was a big fan of blades. Anything that was both sharp and shiny caught his attention, so he'd started out life as a collector of knives. He'd made some enemies, however, and next thing he knew he was on the streets. There his love of all things sharp saved his life, and he quickly developed a skill to match his collection. Sarah had ended up working with him a couple times and the two had realized they made a good team. They worked separately most of the time, but whenever one of them needed the back-up, they would call on the other.

"Flamefist! It's good to see you! Sorry about the groggy intro, I was still too asleep to recognize you. Probably wouldn't have recognized my own mother if she'd been the one to call." Shift sat down on the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn't full of empty soda cans and sheathed knives, daggers, and an occasional sword. Shift's face showed signs of a beard growing, but it only looked like he'd forgotten to shave a couple times in a row. "So, you've got your visual, now what do you need?" the grin he flashed Sarah gave the impression that he thought it was charming, but unkempt appearance destroyed the effect.

"I'm going for a walk and I need someone to make the gangers think twice before they try anything." Shift squinted at the screen as though he didn't believe it, which was understandable considering the last time she'd said that they'd ended up almost getting eaten by a couple werewolves.

"Really? And here I was expecting to have to go to war on an entire gang and you just wanting someone to keep the drug-ees off of ya?" Shift tilted his head sideways. "I think there's more to this than you're saying." Sarah sighed. It had been worth a try.

"Ok. I'm on a job and the trail leads into Reaver territory. In fact, it leads to the Reavers themselves. My old contact for them is currently 6 feet under, or at least what's left of him is, and so I'm going to have to ask the Reavers myself." Sarah sat back and watched Shift's face as he judged everything she'd said. She'd always been good at reading other people's expressions, and Shift was even newer to the shadows than she was, so it was easy to tell he still had some doubts, but he believed her.

"All right. So what's your plan?" Shift smiled as he reached off screen and picked up a can of soda and, using a knife that appeared in his hand like the magic Sarah knew he didn't have, cut the top out so the can was now a cup, and drank heavily from it.

"I'm thinking I walk in and ask nicely." Sarah smile truthfully. Shift pulled a spit-take, drops of soda appearing on the screen.

"shift, Flamefist…And when they say 'no'?" Shift laughed as he cleaned up the mess with a t-shirt that had been lying on the floor. That was another thing about Shift. He got his name because, for reasons he refused to explain, whenever he said 'shit' it sounded like 'shift'. Sarah knew he could speak the word, had even heard him say it once or twice, but most of the time he said 'shift' instead.

"That's what you're for, silly." Sarah smiled as understanding came into the young runner's eyes. "What do you say?"

"I knew it. You're runs are always full of adventure. Sign me up, as long as you're willing to pay the usual cost of my expertise." Shift was already looking around the room, tossing empty soda cans and dirty laundry across the room as he dug through the junk. Sarah sighed for the fifth time since walking out of the market. She'd been hoping he'd forget. Oh, well.

"All right, glad to have you. Meet me at the corner of…"

Sarah sat in the coffee shop, waiting on Shift who was, as usual, late. For someone who could dice a ganger before you knew the guy was there, he sure moved slowly. Sarah had just received her fifth synth-coffee when Shift walked in, ordered an extra hot "cup'o'joe", and sat down next to Sarah. He'd washed and shaved since she'd hung up (that explained the long wait) and was in his business outfit: the same he'd been wearing in the apartment with an armored duster on and a couple of sword hilts just barely visible beneath the coat.

"So, whether or not you mind me asking, what's the job that's got you asking our good friends for information?" Shift asked nonchalantly, showing some tact for once.

"I'm tracking somebody down, and the people who were doing it before me disappeared because they asked the wrong questions. I plan on asking the wrong questions, but not disappearing." Sarah explained.

"And who might that be?" Shift pushed, "You know I won't protect someone unless I know exactly why they need it. It's nothing personal: just good business.

"Ever here of a 'runner called Ghostlight?" Sarah asked over her 6th cup of synth-coffee. Shift's brow furrowed as he thought for a second.

"Nope. Can't say that I have."

"He's a hacker who specializes in data collection. He recently went dark, and my employers think he has something of theirs." Sarah explained, "I'm looking for him, and I'm not the first. There was a group of investigators who apparently came looking for information regarding a reaver gig and the reavers silenced them for it. I checked a few contacts in various areas, and aparently whatever this thing is it's going to be big. The reavers have been bragging about how it's going to be the crime of the century, but nobody has enough to figure out what exactly it is."

"What are you thinking it is? And if they're bragging, it must be big. You know that everyone who hears about it is going to be on guard." Shift mused, "So you need me to do what?" Shift asked again as the barista gave Sarah her 7th cup.

"I need you to keep the Reavers from deciding to just kill me before I can open my mouth. Whatever their plan is, all I'm after is Ghostlight."

"Then after you get the information you're going to need somebody to cover you while you continue after this Ghostlight and eventually track him down and capture him, right?"

"Right. You got the gear for a search? If things go acording to plan, you won't have to draw your gun, or a knife, until we find Ghostlight."

"I can keep." Shift faked a hurt look, "I am appaled that you consider me nothing more than a combat loving freak. I am a combat loving freak with a patience! Besides, when was the last time you went on a run that went acording to plan?" Shift smiled, and as the barista gave him his cup of synth-coffee he stood up and started to walk out, having apparently paid electronically. Sarah waited the half second as the barista gave Sarah her 8th cup of coffee and then followed.

"So, we're using my car, or yours?" Shift spoke over his shoulder as they stepped into the parking lot. Sarah thought for a second, choosing her next words carefully and dropping the empty coffee cup into the trashcan outside the door.

"let's use yours: I took mine home and took a bus here." Sarah knew better than to travel around in the same registered vehicle over a period of time while she was on the job. It leads to people knowing where you are, and that is never good when you're trying to find the stuff they don't want you to know. In truth the car was around the corner in a parking lot for a 24-hour store, and it was big enough that nobody would notice that the car didn't leave after a couple of hours, but the less people knew, especially blunt people like Shift, the less it got around, and Sarah didn't want to come back and find her car had been taken to the closest chop shop because Shift hadn't kept his mouth shut.


End file.
